“I cannot unequivocally conclude that free school meals make pupils learn better in school, but shared school meals contribute positively to the school environment and promote good eating habits.”
This is what Kristine Engebretsen Illøkken says. She recently defended her doctorate at the University of Agder (UiA). Her thesis is about how free school meals can contribute to pupils being better able to learn and having better health later in life.
Illøkken examined the experiences with free lunch for a class of year six children at a school in Agder. The free school lunch trial was carried out as part of the School Meal Research Project at UiA in the 2014-15 school year.
Free lunch for year six pupils
Throughout an entire school year, the year six pupils received free bread, fruit and vegetables for lunch.
Before and after the trial project in 2015, questionnaires were given to pupils and teachers. The same questionnaire went to a group of children who had not received free meals.
A sample group of pupils and teachers was interviewed about their experiences with the project in 2015. Five years later, Illøkken conducted more interviews with another sample group of students and teachers.
Positive effect on the school environment
The results from the interviews show that the pupils experienced a strong sense of togetherness when they sat down to a shared meal. The teachers also believed that the shared lunch hours where everyone was given the same type of food contributed to a sense of community.
The teachers also felt that the meal provided an arena for social learning, where the children got to practice their table manners among other things.
In addition, both pupils and teachers experienced that the free meal consisting of wholegrain bread, fresh fruit and fresh vegetables provided the pupils with useful knowledge about healthy nutrition.
“Many of the pupils started to replace white bread and chocolate spread with wholegrain bread, fruits and vegetables”, the researcher says.
Meals promote community and learning
She emphasises that for pupils to see others eating healthy foods was important in itself.
“A meal is a social occasion where you learn from one another. One pupil said, for example, that he learned to eat red peppers, which he continued to do five years after the end of the school trial. The fact that pupils stick with the new habit years later indicates that free school meals are important in establishing good dietary habits”, the researcher says.
Here are some of the positive effects of the school meal project that pupils and teachers pointed out:
- improved wellbeing at school
- all the pupils were included
- strengthened relationships and friendships among the pupils
- improved table manners
- learned about healthy foods and improved their diet
- concentration was improved
Eating breakfast and reading performance
lIløkken also examined the link between eating breakfast and reading performance. This part of the study was based on a sample of Nordic pupils in the international PIRLS survey. The results showed a positive correlation between eating breakfast and reading performance.
“We cannot directly determine the effect of breakfast, but this sub-study also points to the fact that a conscious relationship with food and nutrition may be important for pupils’ performance as well as public health”, Illøkken says.
Need more clear answers
The researcher says that municipalities and school leaders need more definitive knowledge about the effect of school meals. So does the government. In the policy platform presented by the present government, Hurdalsplattformen, they state that free meals will gradually be introduced in schools to promote public health and wellbeing in school.
“Overall, my thesis demonstrates that school meals have great potential to contribute positively to schools and public health in general, but we still need more research to get clear answers about the effect of free school meals on individual pupils and public health”, Illøkken says.